The repack phases only applied to Full Power and Class A stations. There are still numerous licensed LPTV stations and translators in the 38-51 range in the USA, these can be anything from so-called "useless" channels like shopping/religious, to very popular diginets like Cozi that for various reasons couldn't get clearance on a full power station in a given market, and for people in an area served by a translator, it could be their only way of picking up a big 5 network over the air. (i.e. Ukiah California where translators for the major San Francisco stations are currently in the 38-51 range) Because of the limited availability of tower crews and equipment, LPTV and Translators were not included as part of the repack phases, the majority of them now have construction permits for new frequencies in the 2-36 range, but many don't expire until 2022-2023, and depending on how bad the crew backlog still is by then, those expirations can be extended. Some of them are still analog too since the digital transition was only required for Full Power stations, but their new post-repack facilities in RF 2-36 will be digital.
As for 2-6, it was known
back in 1998 that 2-6 would NOT be eliminated in the 2009 DTV conversion:
The Commission adopted a core spectrum of channels 2-51 for DTV. This decision will eliminate industry uncertainty about the status of VHF channels 2-6
Major makets like Philly have had full power VHF-lo digitals since 2009, and there were even more across the country once you start including Class A/LPTV/Translators. And it only became more populated since then, especially post-repack.
RabbitEars keeps
stats of the allocated digital channels in the USA, here are the pages for the individual channel numbers so you can see a combined list of Full Power and LPTV stations:
RF 2
RF 3
RF 4
RF 5
RF 6
RF 38
RF 39
RF 40
RF 41
RF 42
RF 43
RF 44
RF 45
RF 46
RF 47
RF 48
RF 49
RF 50
RF 51
Also I just looked up your DMA
Portland, it has a LPTV station KPWC-LD that will return to air on RF 6 after it was displaced from RF 24 by KATU, and there's a currently silent repeater of KRCW that's licensed for RF 5. While you may personally be out of range of these LPTV signals, they still count as part of your DMA.
